Middle East

The post-coup purges in Turkey are continuing in full swing. Alongside
the ongoing purges in the state bureaucracy, Erdoğan and his government
recklessly targeted the political opposition. 11 MP’s of the pro-Kurdish
left party HDP (People’s Democratic Party) were arrested and placed
under pre-trial detention.

June 2015 elections: a breaking point

The elections of June 2015, following which the AKP lost its majority in
the parliament, constituted a breaking point in Erdoğan’s policies on
the Kurdish question. The AKP’s desired objective was to prevent the HDP
to surpass the (totally anti-democratic) electoral threshold of 10%
needed to get seats in the Parliament. By being the second most
important party in the Kurdish areas of Turkey (=Northern Kurdistan),
the AKP would grab all the Kurdish parliamentary seats for itself.
Therefore it would be able to reach the critical number of 367 seats
necessary to carry through a constitutional change without taking
recourse to a referendum.

During the so-called “resolution process”, the AKP persistently
addressed the PKK as an interlocutor rather than the HDP, for the very
same reason: trying to keep the HDP in the dark. In order to attract
Kurdish votes, the AKP leaders did their best to spread the message that
it was their party, not the HDP, which was leading the peace resolution.

However, the HDP’s success in the June 2015 elections completely
destroyed the AKP’s plans. The HDP’s left approach, with its strong
emphasis on social and economic questions, had a great impact, not only
in the Kurdish cities, but most importantly, also in the Western cities
where Turkish people are in the majority. Reaping the fruits of victory,
the HDP literally beat the pants off the AKP with 13% of the vote. The
AKP was far from its presidential agenda and, having lost its absolute
majority, was not even able to form a government without the support of
a coalition partner, facing the danger of being pushed back into the
opposition.

Erdoğan and the AKP officialdom knew all too well that the moment they
would concede political power, they would be prosecuted for all the
constitutional violations, the war crimes, and the corruption committed
under their rule. This was not an option they were ready to contemplate
by sitting back – hence maintaining power became a matter of political
life or death.

After the June elections, Erdoğan knew that his days were numbered. The
AKP leaders had to chart a new course, as their priority was not the
presidential system anymore; it was to keep political power at all
costs. Abandoning all hopes for the Kurdish votes, the AKP played in the
most populist way possible in order to get Turkish nationalists’ votes.
With the support of its puppet media (which is almost 100% of the total
media - including the self-proclaimed “secular/social-democrat” media,
who are on the same page when it comes to the Kurdish question) the AKP
declared a war against the Kurdish movement. Hundreds of civilians were
murdered, Kurdish cities were torn into pieces, and guerilla fighters
were executed, tortured, and even exposed to public shame. Most
importantly, all those military operations were applauded and
legitimized in the name of “counter-terrorist operations” by the puppet
media.

The war was not only raging in the East. In western Turkish cities,
Kurdish neighborhoods, workplaces (bookstores) etc. were attacked by AKP
supporters and fascists (who were already looking for any pretext to
attack the Kurds), and Kurdish people living outside Northern Kurdistan
were equally terrorized. By means of all those events, Erdoğan, AKP
officials and the puppet media fueled chauvinism in society and directly
targeted the HDP as a supposed sponsor of terrorism. This logic failed
to follow any consistency, since it was the parliamentary HDP, not even
the PKK -nor obviously the AKP who had once negotiated with it- which
was in the main line of fire. The war was intensely going on, in both an
armed and unarmed way.

In the meantime Erdoğan, as president of the parliamentary system, did
his best to manipulate the governmental process. He blocked all possible
ways to form a coalition government, and forced the other parties into a
snap election. That manipulation was successful; consequently a snap
election was organized, in November 2015.

The HDP was under ferocious attacks, hence too weakened to repeat the
type of successful electoral campaign it had led for the June elections.
This was unfortunately reinforced by some mistakes from the party’s
leadership, such as its decision to cancel all electoral rallies in the
aftermath of the double terrorist attack that shook Ankara on 10 October
2015. In this climate, the demonization and marginalization campaign
against the HDP was met with a certain amount of success, to the point
that the latter lost a considerable amount of Turkish votes in Western
cities and barely passed the electoral threshold. The ruling party’s
war-mongering tactics paid off, as the AKP came to power on its own
again. Now that the cold breath of political death was not in their back
any more, Erdoğan and his clique were ready to go back to their
presidential agenda.

Why a presidential system?

So what is the motive behind Erdoğan’s ambition to move towards a
presidential system? The motive is, simply, to stay politically alive.
Erdoğan, the AKP and all its lapdogs are somehow compelled to move
towards a dictatorship. They don’t have any other option but to be that
much authoritarian and assailant, because of three major reasons.
Firstly, since the June elections they have been boosted by the
chauvinist wave they initiated. Erdoğan’s nationalist and conservative
supporters who would always fall for any action against the Kurds simply
embraced the war against the Kurds. Erdoğan escalated the violence to a
very high level and has prolonged that level since last June’s
elections, and now nothing less is expected of him. They have unleashed
a dynamic upon which they are now dependent, and which they cannot
easily put an end to. Secondly, Erdoğan knows for certain that any crumb
left of the opposition has the potential to snowball into another street
movement like the Gezi Park events of 2013. They have been suppressing
the opposition so hard and for so long that any non-AKP supporter is
longing for any opportunity to be heard and looking for any way to get
rid of their reign. So any embryo of opposition has the potential to be
backed by a mass of people. Erdoğan and his watchdog police are very
conscious of this; they would even attack a 10 people-strong press
statement, as they are scared of any breach of opposition becoming the
starting point for something bigger. Thirdly, even if Erdoğan seems to
be at the height of his power, he is aware that he still faces the grave
peril of being prosecuted. Erdoğan has not ruled in an “ordinary” way
and he does not have the option of smoothly falling back into the
opposition in case he loses grip on power. The genuine and most obvious
reason behind his presidential dreams is that he intends to make sure
that he never loses political power until the end of his lifetime; his
push to amend the Constitution would in effect allow him to stay in
office until 2029.

The characteristic of Erdoğan’s policies was that he seemed, at least in
appearance, to be loyal to legal processes and proceedings. His way of
ruling was not to ignore and to transgress; but to use all his political
power to manipulate, enforce, threaten, extort and then to finally
achieve his aims after a “100% legal” procedure. Making the most
extended use possible of Turkey’s immature bourgeois democracy has been
his method from the beginning - at least until the attempted military
coup in July.

The unsuccessful military coup attempt was, in the proper meaning of the
word, a blessing from heaven for the regime (Erdoğan himself called it a
“gift from God”), in the sense that it served him on a golden plate
another “counter-terrorism” target. The boost the coup attempt gifted
him was so huge that he did not need legal procedures and proceedings
any more. After this attempt, whoever was to stand against him would be
stamped as a coup supporter. The failed coup drastically changed
Erdoğan’s method and gave him the opportunity to completely ignore the
law, as imperfect, unjust and corrupt as it already was. He by-passed
the parliament and ruled the entire country by presidential decrees. As
president, he was already a part of the executive power, the
jurisdiction consisting of his puppet judges and prosecutors; now he
could start to substitute the parliament altogether with his
presidential decrees. What is intended to be expressed here is not that
Erdoğan is indirectly in control of the parliament via his party (which
was already the case before the coup attempt), but that Erdoğan is now
directly constituting the legislative power through personal decrees.
After the coup attempt, he took one step closer to establishing a more
classic form of "personal" dictatorship, by hollowing out the parliament
and by relying heavily on the police machinery to crush resistance to
his rule.

So, what is next? The monster fed by Erdoğan since the June elections is
fattening and getting more gluttonous every day. It will keep eating
every obstacle Erdoğan faces before the presidential system, and will
not stop until then. The authors of Cumhuriyet –the main opposition
newspaper- have been detained, followed by the HDP MP’s. A few days
after the detention of these MP’s, around 370 associations were closed
down. Who will he target next? It is hard to tell. In any case, he will
keep attacking, and socialists are undoubtedly on the rack.

Opposition deficiency

If Turkey was a living organism, the diagnosis for its health condition
would be “opposition deficiency”. The pro-capitalist opposition parties
have been brought to their knees by Erdoğan. Besides the HDP, there are
two opposition parties in Turkey: the neo-fascist MHP (Nationalist
Movement Party) and the Kemalist CHP (People’s Republican Party). The
MHP has been riding on Erdoğan’s coattails since the June elections and
has not presented any shred of opposition. This is not surprising. What
has taken sections of the masses by surprise however is the fact that
the CHP, a supposedly social-democratic and secular party, is shining by
its inertia and its complicity with the AKP’s agenda since last June’s
elections. First, they voted in favor of the military operations against
the PKK right after the elections. Then they voted in support of lifting
off the parliamentary immunity of the HDP representatives. And since the
coup attempt, they have openly supported Erdoğan, dashing their own
voters’ expectations that they would do something to stop him in his
tracks. Party officials are aware that there is not much to be done
against Erdoğan through the parliamentary arena, while they abandoned
all hopes for legal procedures. At the same time, they never saw the
streets as a solution, therefore they never initiated any grassroots
mobilization - which they fear would spiral out of their control. Last
week, for example, a demonstration was planned in Istanbul and the CHP,
in the most ridiculous manner, dropped its participation to the
demonstration an hour before it took place. The CHP’s compromising
attitude vis-à-vis Erdoğan’s offensive has caused a deep disappointment
among its supporters, not to say disgust. Many CHP supporters are
screaming through social media for them to finally do something.

Everyone opposing Erdoğan in Turkey is longing for a way to fight back,
but the last months have demonstrably shown that a serious opposition
will never come from the CHP’s camp. The CHP is the founding party of
the Turkish Republic, it is a pro-establishment party defending the
interests of Turkish capitalism, and it has proved once more that it
will never be the vehicle for organizing a serious struggle in defense
of the interests of the working class, the poor and the Kurdish people.

Serious initiatives undertaken by the left not only have the potential
to grow into another mass protest movement like Gezi, but also would
help bring the most genuine layer of CHP members and supporters towards
the left. What is necessary against Erdoğan’s rule at this point is a
united front, in which the labor movement should be a driving part.
Every element of genuine opposition, every little obstacle on Turkey’s
descent towards dictatorship, should coalesce into a mass movement to
get rid of the regime.

Recently, thousands of people, especially women, demonstrated across the
country to protest against an AKP bill that would overturn men’s
convictions for child sexual assault if they married their victim. This
mass outcry forced the government to retreat almost immediately. This
example is significant as it demonstrates that behind its façade of
toughness, the regime is petrified by the reemergence of any street
mobilization, and can be forced to retreat. As many people have been
longing for any sign of opposition, it is a great time to develop a
grassroots struggle from below. Yet this struggle should not only target
Erdoğan himself, as the man stands as the ultimate arbiter of an entire
system that has made him and nurtured him. Erdoğan is a genuine product
of Turkish capitalism, hence there is no greater antidote to counteract
his rule than the revival of the class struggle. In the midst of the
deadlock of the capitalist crisis, a socialist alternative must be
urgently built.